Can’t You Read: Saving Kurdistan Means Staying In Syria Forever
Paved With Good Intentions
In a recent Mastodon thread that featured prominently in my last article, I did my best to explain why portions of the American left were being deceived into manufacturing consent for the Pig Empire’s larger ambitions in Syria and the toppling of Bashir al-Assad.
In the time since then it has been all but confirmed that I was correct in assuming that despite Trump’s poor attempt at spin, Erdogan and Turkey intended to invade northern Syria whether America agreed, or not. Trump didn’t “green-light” anything; despite his massive ego and America’s longstanding exceptionalism the Turkish invasion of north Syria actually began months and months ago with the occupation of Afrin. It doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out why liberal interventionists took no measures against Erdogan while he purged Kurdish people from Turkish civil life and rolled tanks into Kurdish-controlled Afrin – because none of that was tied to the dim possibility of leaving Syria and thus making it more difficult to restart the war to topple Assad as soon as Trump is gone.
As (financially) interested elements of the war machine’s media propaganda divisions have spun this tale out into a larger story of Pig Empire geopolitical struggle against perceived enemies in Russia and Iran, it has now also become tragically clear that for the warhawks in the West, the very real suffering of the Kurdish people in Syria is nothing more than a sideshow in a larger effort to continue the imperial project in the MENA region. Nowhere is this propaganda campaign more evident than in the stilted coverage of the swine emperor’s attempts to justify pulling US troops back from the area Turkey is invading; while every media outlet in America printed Trump’s stolen howler about the Kurds “not helping us at Normandy” most corporate media outlets reprinted absolutely none of his completely, objectively true comments about America’s disastrous forever wars in the Middle East – the comments I noted in this meme.
Furthermore, this really doesn’t have all that much to do with believing or trusting Donald Trump. You don’t have to think the Klepto Kaiser is a real anti-imperialist; I certainly don’t. You don’t have to think Trump is serious about leaving the Middle East; it’s fairly obvious to anyone with a brain that the U.S. is still massing troops in Saudi Arabia for a potential invasion of Iran. All you have to ask yourself is are you prepared to support keeping U.S. troops in Syria forever to protect the Kurds and do you sincerely believe that isn’t going to lead to another forever war with Assad? If you answered yes to either of those questions, I’m not really sure how you can call yourself well informed or anti-war, leftist or otherwise.
Look, I’m not heartless – of course we should oppose Turkey’s invasion of Syria, of course we should oppose ethnic cleansing and possible genocide against the Kurds; but the truth is that this is a diplomatic and economic issue and there are far better solutions to this problem than leaving 50 American troops in the firing line and daring Erdogan to risk killing one of them. The Pig Empire was never prepared to go to war with (still, inexplicably) allied Turkey to protect the Kurds and US imperial ambitions in Syria do not include supporting an anarcho-communist militia once Assad is deposed and the venture capital vultures swoop in to “rebuild” the nation. The idea that staying in Syria is about defending the Kurds or that doing so would guarantee “protecting Rojova” is patently false.
Opposing the Turkish invasion of Kurdish-held territory in Syria isn’t the same thing as demanding U.S troops stay to occupy a foreign country in a warzone manufactured by a NATO ally – and anyone who tells you it is, probably doesn’t have your best interests at heart; even if they do genuinely care about the Kurdish people.
– nina illingworth
